From: Matt Kundert (pirsigaffliction@hotmail.com)
Date: Fri Apr 01 2005 - 19:29:29 BST
Hey Ham,
Matt said:
The only reason it appears that I glorify "philosophology" is because you
think the distinction can be held.
Ham said:
What distinction?
Matt:
The distinction between philosophy and philosophology. This is the
distinction between philosophy’s substance and philosophy’s history. The
only way I can see holding this distinction is by thinking of philosophy as
a natural kind. It’s obvious from the way you’ve been writing that you
think of philosophy this way, which causes you to boggle at people who
don’t. But what is this fire that people are supposedly circling but never
getting warm by, let alone burning themselves on, a fire that is obscured by
the bandying about of the names of philosophers? I presume you would answer
the “problems of philosophy.” I can’t think of any other answer that
doesn’t either collapse into “the problems of philosophy” or collapse the
whole distinction entirely. But if you think that problems of philosophy
are natural, and that talking about Kant, or Frankfurt, or Dennett in
connection to the problem of free will, let’s say, obscures the problem, I
wonder how you would learn about the problem?
Ham said:
The *content* of philosophy has to be more than its comparative history, or
evolution. That's what we're supposed to learn in Philosophy 101. Aren't
you, in effect, throwing a monkey wrench in the works? If philosophy is
reduced to a discipline in which everyone compares his philosophy with
another's, ad infinitum, philosophy will indeed have come to the "dead end"
you speak of.
Matt:
The content of philosophy has to be more than its comparative history or
evolution. Then what is it? What did I miss in Phil 101 by Prof. Kay
Picart? What monkey wrench is this I’m throwing? Because, while I don’t
think anything I’m saying _reduces_ philosophy to one thing or another, I
can’t help but think that the _point_ of philosophy (at least as it has been
performed since Socrates) is to compare it to other peoples’, that the
reason we gain wisdom isn't just for us, but to help others. And how would
we know that we'd reached some small amount of wisdom if we didn't bounce
our ideas off of others? And I can’t help but point out that Pirsig agrees
with me. And since its obvious that if philosophy were something you
compared to everyone else’s, ad infinitum, there would _never_ be an end,
you must mean something slightly different when you claim it’d be a dead
end. My guess is the Platonic ideal of a terminus to inquiry, that
philosophy _will_ eventually stop when we’ve solved everything. And my
guess is that the things we’re solving is something suitably grandiose and
vague like “the problems of existence.”
Matt said:
I think modern philosophy has shown itself to be a dead end. We need to
find something else for philosophy to be.
Ham said:
Isn't there an inconsistency here? On one hand you seem to be advocating an
intellectual understanding of the development of philosophical thought from
the pre-Socratics to Pirsig, while on the other, suggesting that the modern
philosopher throw away all that has gone before and start afresh.
Matt:
Nah, no real inconsistency. The reason we want to understand the past is to
understand what the past was up to and that way be able to decide whether or
not we want to continue doing it. So I’m certainly not advocating that we
stop being philosophers, I’m simply suggesting we stop being _distinctively_
modern philosophers, i.e. following in the footsteps of Descartes. There
are certainly all sorts of other things going on in philosophy that we don’t
need to throw away, things that even the distinctively modern philosophers
were doing, despite the fact that they pretty much thought it was ancillary
to what made them distinctively modern. And who knows what other things
bright, creative, original minds might dream up to do?
But I’m pretty sure you’ll reject this understanding of philosophy because
it would seem you think philosophy is something eternal and perennial,
despite it having a natural, terminal end.
Ham said:
I agree that [Pirsig] would have better served his cause by writing
treatises; but what would they contain, if not a full-blown theory including
the metaphysics? Certainly not philosophology.
Matt:
Actually, I tend to think his cause _was_ best served by writing novels—but
never mind that. My guess as to what a Pirsig-written treatise would
contain is: more of what was already in the novels. Which is to say, a
theory that was a muddled combination of traditional, metaphysical Platonism
and Protagorean, antimetaphysical pragmatism, basted with a sauce of Eastern
mysticism.
And the philosophology is already in the novels. Why would it be missing
from this hypothetical treatise?
And why they hell are you suggesting that I read Thorn’s essay or Ayn Rand
or anybody else when I’m not supposed to be reading anybody?
See how silly it sounds when you get rid of the “philosophology?”
Matt
_________________________________________________________________
Don’t just search. Find. Check out the new MSN Search!
http://search.msn.click-url.com/go/onm00200636ave/direct/01/
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Apr 01 2005 - 19:54:31 BST